Once was a time Sonic games were just as good as Mario games. Some may even say better. That time, however, was back in the 1990's. And it's been a while since the 1990's.

Yet the blue hedgehog is still Sega's most prominent mascot, and Sega keep on churning out Sonic games, even though they suck. Which begs the question: when can we expect Sonic games to not suck? Sega America's VP of marketing Sean Ratcliffe got stuck with the excuse-making:

The quality is something that will be fixed over time. It's not something where you wake up one morning and say, 'You know what, we're going to improve our quality on this franchise,' and it magically happens. A lot of hard work goes into striving for quality.

Normally, we'd stop things there, but we like Ratcliffe's continued response so much we're going to run it:

Interestingly, I think Sonic Unleashed was very well received by the kids. There was some talk about the werehog aspect, the slower pacing and more combat-oriented gameplay, but when we go out and test this stuff and sit down with the consumers, kids actually like that. I think older, die-hard Sega fans who grew up with the franchise and the first Sonic the Hedgehog associate Sonic more with 2-D side-scrolling super fast, and they liked the daytime gameplay, but when it came to the slower paced gameplay they were fairly critical of that, and that's fine – they have their opinions.

"But the kids like it." Bet other publishers wish they could peddle that one out!